New Generation
by Buckskin
Summary: Jason was Stryker's final experiment, then he became Wolverine's nightmare. As he struggles to fit in at the mutant academy, he also must find out what connection he has to Project Gamma, and Echoes
1. Chapter 1

Stupid, stupid, stupid. That was the only word going through my head as I sat in the corner of a shabby bar in Minnesota. On the bench next to me sat the infamous Wolverine, who was definably, thoroughly, and completely bored by his situation. He had grudgingly taken over Cyclops's field combat training class, extremely grudgingly. He had already sat through three days of observation with students and he was just about sick of everyone, including me.

"What do you see?"

He waved his cigar vaguely over the haze of smoke that surrounded his lounging form. I rolled my eyes and did not bother to respond; he knew the answer by heart already. Out of nervous habit I started cracking my knuckles, a habit he hated with a passion. First finger, second finger...

"Shut up, Jason." Wolverine pulled his head out of his cloud to give me a dirty look. "God, when they told me that Stryker had started on a _two-year old_, I never imagined that they would bother to find you at sixteen, let alone bring you in."

I gave Logan a dirty look before vainly attempting to pull my black bangs off of my sticky forehead; the bar had no air conditioner. The worst part was that he was right. After Stryker had created his bodyguard Death Strike, he became interested in what effect that the procedure would have on a child, specifically a very young child. Stryker discovered mini-me at a park in Tulsa, Arizona where I was playing with a knife my mother had left on a table. When Stryker advanced on the sixteen-month-old version of me, I accidentally sliced off my own hand, causing my powers to prematurely engage.

I was taken to Alkali Lake and tested on until I was two years old. The testing stimulated the unnatural bone growth that could be defined as claws, and then Stryker pounced. I was injected with the same pattern of adamantium as The Wolverine, then left to die on the tundra. After stumbling to an Inuit settlement, I nearly stabbed the chief when my claws involuntarily sprang from my hands. That did not fare so well with my reputation. After being shunned in Canada, I moved up to Alaska at twelve. I relocated frequently, stealing rides on the backs of trucks and R.V.s as I went. At sixteen I had started entering fights for money, which sometimes left a notable trail in my wake. This bothered me because it made me traceable, but I really needed the money. It was after one of my longer trails of carnage that I was caught up by Kitty and Iceman in a bar.

They persuaded me to come back to the lower forty-eight after they showed me pictures of kids my age not running for their lives from the government. I was so used to living by the rules of the wild that the transition to civilization never quite completed. Every night I still checked my door and I kept a secret stash of cans in my room. I did not trust electronics and I once attacked a teacher who tried to get me to use chemicals. The X-men made to probably enlightened observation that I would never be able to fit in anywhere "normal" so I would have to become one of them.

Thus I ended up in a class with the resentful Wolverine as my teacher. Remembering one of my infrequent duties as acting leader of the squad, I checked the placement of my classmates in the wide bar room. Two hunched over forms at the bar indicated that Snickers and his brother Target had fallen asleep at their posts yet again; an unfortunate habit that they had both developed, one involuntarily. My gaze passed fleetingly over a solitary outline of a girl in the corner. Shadow was the newest edition to the class and was considered something of an outcast among the mainly boisterous group of teens. She came from a similar environment to me, eat or be eaten. I groaned as the last post slid into my peripheral vision. Jinx was huddled in a corner of the booth, sharing quiet words with the misty-eyed shape shifter Scales. I resumed the knuckle cracking Wolverine had distracted me from. Whenever Jinx and Scales sat together, I ended up in trouble. Third finger, fourth finger…

I was roused from my musings by the cold breeze that swept through the room every time the door swung open. A hooded customer slid through the tiniest opening possible and slipped into the crowd, clearly not wanting to be seen. I cracked both my wrists, signaling to Shadow that I had news. The light whisper of long hair greeted my ears as Shadow took a seat at our table, her face as shadowed as the girl's.

"The one in the zip up hoodie." Of course Shadow knew whom I had seen, she always did.

"Well…" I prompted her, wanting to know what she had gleaned in the darkness.

She nodded. "The power was defiantly higher than a three. We need to take her in."

Wolverine choked on his cigar at her words. "What- take- what-" he spluttered but Shadow had already moved to inform the others of the arrival. I rose, knowing already that I would have to make the first move.


	2. Chapter 2

I probed the crowd with my eyes as I stole toward the bar. The hooded person was discernable only because they were so short. The mass of humanity parted before her almost unconsciously, cringing away from the palpable power. As I got nearer to the figure, I began to see the distinctive features of a girl. I drew up beside her and began my "we are taking you" speech quietly.

"I am with Xavier's School for the Gifted, the one in the country side." The hood did not respond, so I continued unperturbed, "We detected your signature above the others in here. It would probably be better for everyone involved if you came quietly."

I heard quiet, scathing laughter from the shadow on the wall and jumped involuntarily. I had never really had the chance to look at Shadow before this, and was shocked. Her elbow length fingerless gloves covered most of her arms below her cap sleeve black tee shirt. Her long, black hair hung over half her face, covering one eye. The other eye stood against her pale skin; it was a bright, robin's egg blue. The thing that really drew me was the tattoos. Snaking up her neck and high cheekbones, they looked like spirals of smoke, but more all consuming, like a shadow. The little of her arms that were visible exhibited similar patterns.

Ignoring me, she directly addressed the hood. "I apologize for my compatriots, hmm," she paused, smiling slightly at a thought that had occurred to her, "let's phrase it, _bluntness_."

The hood chuckled in dry amusement. "No apology necessary. I can see he knows not what comes out of his mouth." I flushed at the insult as they moved toward the bar.

I was not a people person; I never had been giving my history. It had taken the teachers at Xavier's many months to train me out of the habit of pinning anyone who snuck up behind me against the wall. Most of my childhood interactions with people were begging and trying to explain away why an adult did not accompany me. Lots of times arguments I had ended up with fights and me upping the bar owners insurance for the next year.

I sulked my way back to Wolverine to watch the interaction from afar. I ran my fingers through my bangs again; they would not stop sticking to my forehead. Wolverine looked from me to the now un-hooded girl at the bar with Shadow and smirked. I focused on the girl, attempting to block out Wolverine's next snide comments about my social incompetence. Something rippled beside me and I flinched, regretting not checking my seat before accidentally sitting next to Scales. Her naturally purple eyes were a shade of blue that was definitely unnatural in the pouty face that she had assumed for the occasion. The eyes almost clashed with her naturally green skin, thought now it was a funny shade of tan.

She had been flirting with me from the moment I had been thrown unconscious into the building by a furious Wolverine. She almost worshiped me but I hated her. No, not just the "she's really annoying" hate, the kind that stems from a trick they pulled that left you scarred, or that their mother reported you to the man who mutilated you forever. That was also the day the same woman ran screaming to the police station with a confused and fully mutated Scales contorting through buildings behind her. I blocked out her whinny voice too, concentrating on the girl.

Her hair was black, not the fake Goth black, but the real, silky, shiny almost blue black. It was tied in a braid that fell to her waist, and revealed her neck. Tattoos. The same kind, but yet different; these almost represented those freaky elemental symbols used in cheep kids cartoons. Her cheekbones were as high as Shadow's and she had the same pale skin that emphasized the eyes. The one eye I could see was the color of pool water, it even seemed to shimmer. The eye was flickering from Shadow to other things in the room, indicating the same wild induced instinct.

A washed out purple mini skirt and ugly fish net tights abruptly blocked my view of the conversation, forcing me to raise my eyes to look at Jinx. Her skin was always so powdered that I did not know what colour it really was and her eyes were flat, boring wall paint grey. Found as a Jane Doe after a hurricane in Louisiana, she had no memory of her past life and a pronounced Southern drawl. Scales was her cohort, helping her in her plans for capturing Snickers. Scales slid around me, making sure to brush against my knees as she passed me, the asshole.

I was saved from any pestering besides their presence by the arrival of Shadow and the mystery girl. Wolverine raised his eyebrows as he stood up, towering over the two shorter girls, wanting to assert his control of the situation. Shadow stated the facts, as she had put it _bluntly_, promptly drawing everyone's attention to her.

"This is Echo. She will listen to what we have to say."


	3. Chapter 3

Wolverine choked on his cigar again. Shadow gave him a scathing look before continuing.

"She has only consented to _listen_ not necessarily do anything about anything we may tell her."

By this point I had turned bright red with shame, only inside. Shadow had managed to convince Echo of what I had not. I could already hear the lecture from Wolverine _You were selected as the leader of the out of school observation missions, and yet Shadow does everything for you…_

"Jason, Jason!" Jinx's voice managed to be sharp through her Louisiana drawl. "Introduce us."

I shook my head to clear it and stood up, towering over the short form of Echo. She held out her hand and I took it, repressing a wince as my claws ground the skin of my wrist painfully with her grip.

"I'm Jason. This is Jinx and that thing is Scales." I heard the evil hisses as I failed to elaborate on their chosen name bullshit, and the jibe at Scales's natural form. Point for me. "Jinx can silence anyone with no mental shields, and Scales can morph." I jerked my thumb at the two sleeping forms at the bar. "Those two sleeping on the job are Snickers and Target. So you can tell the difference between them, Snickers is the annoying one who can change the emotions of a room, and Target is the not annoying one who can emit targeted shock waves in rings around him."

"I beg your pardon, but I am not annoying." I grimaced as I turned to face the mildly indignant form of Snickers. His brother stood behind him, shaking his head in disgust. I had left out Target's private power. He had confided it to a select few, of which I counted myself one of the lucky few. He had minor, yet growing, telepathy.

_Asshole._ Target thought as he slid between his brother and me to shake Echo's hand.

"Delighted." Echo responded monotonously, looking back at me, clearly waiting for my list of mutations.

"This idiot has adamantium implants to match mine." Wolverine had stood up to his impressive height, which I was only under by a few inches. "I'm-"

"Wolverine." She finished for him, not taking the proffered hand. "You know smoking is a bad habit, it could get you into trouble." I noticed that she flicked her fingers toward his cigar as it went out.

Shadow gave Wolverine a look of pure venom as she spun Echo toward the door. Their relationship was developing about as well as a porcupine and coyote's, which comforted me in a sick kind of way. I sighed and hung back behind the group for Target. _What is their problem?_ His annoyed thoughts reflected his true emotions, as his face could not in present company.

"No idea, I thought you would know, as one of El Mexican Americanos." I sarcastically responded to his thought.

_That was Snickers idea, not mine. Besides he replaced me with Jinx a long time ago._ His thoughts seemed to cut me like glass. He then changed to a reflective tone that let me formulate a response. _What do you think of the freaky Echo girl? What kind of powers do you think she had?_

I shook my head, portraying my answer without words, deciding not to mention the odd cigar thing yet. We walked in silence for a while, both absorbed in our individual thoughts. I was totally confused about Echo and Shadow's obvious familiarity, at least in passing. The fact that they looked oddly similar was sinister as well. To know how to convince someone of an idea as momentous as the one we suggested took knowledge of that person's personality, a serious knowledge. Then there was the infinitesimal matter of the tattoos that they both possessed in huge quantities. How did they get those coordinated, was it a cultural thing where they came from?

_Let's get a car alone so that I do not have to maintain a mental monologue all the way back to the mutant school. _I smiled slightly at Target's interruption to my thoughts.

"Target, on one condition. This time, I get to drive."


	4. Chapter 4

Target sat grudgingly in the passenger seat of the pick up truck that I had brought with me down from Alaska. The product of a won fight, it was my most prized possession and the reason I hated Target and his erratic driving. His constant talk was one of the reasons I had gravitated toward him when I first came to Xavier's. He only talked when he was not around his brother, which meant that we both shared a problem with him. We both had quickly realized that we had secrets, and we had quickly discovered each others by mutual consent. Target actually told me about his telepathy, which put me in the awkward position of telling him about my past. Stryker had done more than making me a mini Wolverine. He had also tampered with my two other abilities. He had forced me to experiment with my telekinesis, and the artificially induced super speed.

I was more comfortable around Target than he could ever know. Because I knew I was safe around him I did not have to act the big bad wild Alaska man. I could actually laugh around him, and I could smile without being afraid of Wolverine around the corner to make fun of me. We had days, alternating questioning days that had been an agreement so we did not have shouting matches. Unfortunately it was his day.

"What is with you and Shadow?" He had one of those funny health granola bars in his hand and he was using it to gesture as he talked. "You were looking at her like you were a bear and she was a pot of honey."

I chuckled and threw Target a disdainful look that I hoped did not look too faked. "There is nothing between us. She is just some freaky assassin girl, and I'm a freaky metal man, nothing sim-"

Target shook his head and I knew I was discovered. "When you saw her face, you looked like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time."

I glanced at him, this time in amusement. "Why are you using such dramatic similes? And what do Shadow and I have in common, tell me one thing."

Target made a huge show of thinking very hard before beginning one of his patented Target-sarcasm-speeches that I had found no match for anywhere. "Let's see, you are both total outcasts. Umm, gosh, this is such a dozy. You both lived on the fringes of society violently in your pasts. Gee what-"

I threw my hand to his chest to silence him, being careful not to throw my hand to hard and break his ribs. In the road ahead there was a giant crash. I stopped under a bridge and looked at him in shock. Where were the rest of them? There was a swooshing noise beside me like draining water and I cringed away from the concentrated darkness. Shadow's form became immediately distinguishable from the mass of shadow stolen from the bridge.

"Holy shit, Shadow, we didn't know-"

She cut me off sharply, "Snickers caused the crash, so I decided that I needed to ride along with someone who was safer to ride with, because I did not plan on dying today." She also answered the other unasked question hanging in the air. "Echo blasted her way out and said she would meet us at Xavier's. She now shares the general consensus that both Jinx and Snickers need sense blasted through their ears. Go around the right, it's clear there."


	5. Chapter 5

We finally made it back to Xavier's after what seemed like an age in traffic. Shadow, thankfully, had disappeared at the gate, and Target and I could breath again. Being in the car with her had felt like sitting in a very strict library. We managed to sneak through the garage into the hall outside my dorm undetected, but that was as far as we got.

Target flashed a warning into my head that he was coming and I made a wild dash down the corridor. I could hear Target behind me, panting as he struggled to keep up with my longer legs. I waited for the dreaded shout and was, regrettably, not disappointed.

"You two, stop!" Wolverine's voice blasted my ears. He was about as welcome as Jinx at this point, and I knew I could beat him hands down in a race. I turned the corner at a dead sprint and just made it to my room. Target flashed by me, just getting his second wind, and I slammed the door. I slid the industrial strength blast door over the flimsy wood so that Wolverine would not have a fun time breaking into the room.

Target sat on his hand-felted Mexican bedspread. He had horror written all over his face as I sat in front of him on my patch work rag quilt that I had pieced together over my years on the road. Even though he had heard it for two years, it hurt Target every time he heard Wolverine's thoughts about me. Target was a non-violent environmentalist who did not like conflict of any kind, no matter how minor. He calmed his features and looked into my face. I hated it that Wolverine loathed my existence more than anyone could ever know in ten life times. Wolverine was the only one who could have possibly understood my dilemmas with my adamantium skeleton and claws, but he had decided that I was enemy number one.

The slight swoosh like molding clay made both turn of us around and Target smiled. The dented wall had parted in an elegant arch and a slight, mousy haired girl stood in it. As she entered she gestured at the wall behind her and the arch closed seamlessly. Target stood up and pulled her into a hug.

"Ellen, it's good to see you."

Ellen disengaged herself from Target and I gave her one of the bear hugs I knew she loved. She was a sweet faced girl with layered brown hair that framed her gentle eyes like a picture frame.

"Should we keep calling you Ellen, or do you want us to call you Morphose now?"

The smile slid from her face and she sat on Target's bed. "I did not get to choose my name. Call me Ellen until I can get it changed." Tears began to slide down her face as she continued, "Jinx chose it, she told Storm that I was too embarrassed to come to her, so she got her own way. Admitted, she thought hard about the story. I wanted Earthenware, because I manipulate the matter like pottery. She thought it did not have enough spunk." She spat the last word out as if it would infect her if she held it for too long.

All I felt was disgust. Choosing the name you would go by was immensely personal; it showed who you were as a warrior. Jinx was trying to push me to make my name either Wolverine mark two, or Wolf, but she had not yet told anyone that I had chosen either of those names, probably because she knew she was toast if she did. If she was pushing forward names, she was vying for control that I had unwillingly had shoved on me.

Totally repulsed, I hauled Ellen to her feet and out the door by her ellbow. She looked at Target for help, but he shrugged and followed.

"Jason, what are we doing?"

I could not respond, I just kept dragging her until we reached Iceman's room. I looked at both Target and Ellen to see if they got it now. Realization had dawned on both of their faces, and I pushed the door open.


	6. Iceman

We burst into Iceman's room, finding him sitting at his desk reading. He looked up as we entered, raising his eyebrows at the storm of fury that accompanied me. His eyes flickered over the half dried tears on Ellen's face, and the now half amused look on Target's features. He did not bother to stand up, he just closed the file he had been reading, and shifted so he was facing us.

I just stood, staring at him, horrified by what he had allowed to happen. After what seemed an frozen eternity I spoke.

"How? You can refuse someone entrance to the X-men, yet you cannot deny someone who _claims_ that they know what someone wants."

Iceman raised his eyebrows higher and glanced at the corner of his desk, which had begun to melt and deform as if a fist held it. He looked at all three of the almost X-men who stood before him and smiled slightly. "Honestly, I think the name fits her perfectly, but that is beside what you are accusing." His blue eyes bored deeply into mine as he cleared up what he thought we were saying. "You are claiming that Jinx forced the name Morphose on Ellen, saying that she wants control of the next generation."

Ellen laughed. It was not the laugh I knew, for it was cold and totally devoid of humor. She was the kind of person who always lightened the situation, but not now. "You people cannot see, let alone make decisions for the next generation." Target put his hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it off, her eyes still drilling holes in Iceman. "That _thing_ hates Jason because he had control of the new group forced on him, she uses Scales like Magneto used Mystique and you know it. She does not want people in the next group of X-men to date unless she gives it a nod of approval. If there is even the slightest possibility that someone is hiding a power, like I hid my manipulation, she absolutely has to get it out of him or her. That is the new generation of X-men, the would-be puppets of Jinx."

Iceman actually showed emotion in front of us for the first time in his life. The cold repelled the colder. He stood up and blasted a jet of frozen air at Ellen. She raised her hands before Target or I could move and the ice became malleable. It fell to the floor as a model of Jinx whipping the group while I stood about to stab her with my claws; which exploded at Iceman's feet. She turned and left with Target and me in bewildered tow, not wanting to be alone with the angry Iceman. When we had reached the room and sealed it, Target put his arms around the now sobbing Ellen. All the colour was gone from her face and her ghost like appearance made me remember a comparison she had made long ago about her powers.

"Ceramic."

Both of them looked up at me as I spoke the word. I looked at the tear-streaked face of the girl who had been so kind to me. "That is your name. It fits, if you want it."

She smiled, the glow starting to return to her cheeks. "Thank you, Jason, thank you."


	7. Chapter 7

We sat for a moment, silent, unmoving and shocked. We all knew whom we had to go to if we wanted change, and none of us liked it. Another transition noise came from a corner and I froze, horrified that Kitty might have been sent after us, but Shadow and Echo stepped into the light wearing totally neutral expressions as they stand next to a lit wall. Both of them were clearly aware of what had happened with Iceman.

I knew that I could not face Shadow if I want to keep my secret, but I had a feeling that she already knew. She moved herself away from the wall and sat next to me. I could feel her gaze but could not meet it. Echo moved to stand slightly apart from the group sitting on the two beds, so that her silhouette would be between ours. I finally brought myself to look at Shadow, looking into both of her eyes. They showed sympathy, and something deeper in their galaxy wide depths.

"What are you going to do? This is bigger than you can imagine."

Echo's voice cut the silence and replaced it with a question. I looked up into her fathomless eyes, now confused. "How so? Is she part of some underground resistance to the X-men, or a part of a group of human haters?"

Echo smiled dryly to fill her face so she could keep talking and did not answer but went on in her own vein. "Jason, you are the leader whether you like it or not. That means you need to rally who you can against Mercu-, Jinx and reveal who she is at heart."

"Wait," I knew what Target had picked up the hesitation and knew he could articulate a question much better than I ever could. "You almost called her Mercury. Where else do you know her from?"

Echo scrutinized Target for a long time, sizing him up against her answer. The look was almost predatory, as if she were going to eat us. She decided that we could handle it and launched into a story so vivid that I could see it happening before my eyes.

"I was once not alone in the world. I was once part of a government program called Project Gamma." Her face developed the most hateful look I had ever seen. "It specialized in experimentation on children, young children. I was taken as a three month old infant, and held until I blasted myself out at ten. My power is, unusual to say the least, and they wanted to see the extent of my powers. The kind of experimentation was all pain related, which it why I divide mine up in my mind. At first they did physical pain, horrifyingly high electrocution, sitting in an unbearably hot iron chair with flames around you, being held underwater within an inch of your life, being held in a vacuum, having all of your limbs broken at once. That was my life until I was six years old. By that time I could look in the face of the person operating the machine and laugh at the pain, I was totally immune to it and still am to this day."

She smiled slightly before she continued. "It was at this point that they put me a in cell with three other people. One you know as Jinx who was then Mercury, and a pair of Korean twins. We became fast friends, teaching each other ways to deal with pain and aggravate the guards so they would go insane and leave. Then they started torturing us in alteration in front of one person to see if they would crack. We almost did many times, but we eventually became immune to it, just like the physical pain. After they realized we were immune to physical and emotional pain, they brought out a powerful mind-controlled mutant to attack us mentally. At eight years old I developed a practically unbreakable, permanent mental shield. I never did, and probably never will, figure out how to disable it. That was the year that Mercury blew up the cell around us, she went insane, and killed Yu and Ti." She paused and I could see the ghost of an old pain behind her eyes, eyes that belonged to a much older person. "I blasted myself out of the rubble and out of the facility, I almost turned it into a crater. I went into the mutant underworld and met two very kind loners who helped me get tattoos and find a place in the loner's world. They took in several rogue mutants at a time and trained them on how to survive in the real world. I never found out what happened to Mercury, I just figured that she had killed herself with her blast of silence. Now I know differently."

The horrified silence stretched on and on, none of us knew how to respond to her story. The terrible part of all of it all was that I knew it was all true. I had never been good with sob stories, but this was far worse. Finally, Target broke the silence with a question I had not picked up.

"What did you mean, a blast of silence?"

Echo's smile was almost a mirror of Ellen's earlier, cold and unforgiving. "Her silence power can do more than shut people up. You know how sometimes when someone needs to cover something up, you "silence someone"? That is what else she can do. She can only do it to people with no mental shields and capacity for powers related to the mind, but she can."

The silence stretched on, farther than I could comprehend. Jinx could _kill people_? Then I remembered a reference in her story I needed to ask about.

"You said you were part of Project Gamma, right? Were you the only participants?"

She shook her head. "No, they had a whole slew of kids. I never met most of them but I heard them scream, why?"

I remembered the door, and the Greek letter, Gamma. "I think I was part of it too. I think they gave me the claws."

She just nodded. "Most likely. You were little, so they would be the only ones who could deal with that kind of pressure from the scientists."

Shadow put her hand on my shoulder, her eyes full of sorrow. I looked away from her face; right now I just needed to think. The news about Jinx made the situation more desperate, she could strike here, so we needed to act fast. Fast always meant breaking the rules.


	8. Chapter 8

I looked up at the people that I now had to unwillingly accept as my team. Our differences had drawn us together, now we had to turn that into a team that would trust each other with anything, even out lives. That kind of pressure had never worked for Mr. Anit-People Person. I looked each of them in the eye in turn, Target's shocked expression fading into stern determination, Ellen's look of fiery resolve, and Shadow's impassive blue eyes. I looked at my rough hands and unsheathed my claws in my right hand. I raised them so my fist was next to my face before I started speaking.

"You all know who will believe us. Wolverine is unpleasant to deal with at the best of times, especially with me there, but we have to. We need access to the X-men stuff in the lower levels."

I could tell by the exasperated expressions on every face that the prospect of going to Wolverine for help with me as the leader was going to be as unpleasant for me as it was for them. Just having me there was like having two south ends of a magnet on a table. I re-sheathed my claws and slowly rose from my seated position. Shadow shook her hair back over half her face and stood with me. The rest of them followed suit, Echo still slightly separate from the others. I opened the door and we all filled out into the hall, the silence as present as it would have been if Jinx had been there. I took a deep breath and lead the way to Wolverine's door. We seemed to go through half the building before we reached the almost empty section of the building Wolverine slept in.

I glanced at Target as I reached the door but he rolled his eyes at the door, _you first_. I silently cursed him and knocked on the hated door.

"Come in, I won't bite." Wolverine's gruff voice was the voice of the devil to my ears, but I spearheaded my fear and the way through doorway for the good of everyone else in my team. He dropped the bottle he had been holding with a clunk onto the carpeted floor. I carefully noted the order that the rest of the group took as they stood to my flanks. Shadow leaned against the shady wall to my right, making sure she had an easy escape route if things got nasty. On my immediate left Target was only upright because Ceramic stood almost behind him with her hand clamped on his arm. Echo was a foot away from them, her arms crossed over her chest and her feet set in a firm stance that was clearly meant to withstand at least the first attack that Wolverine could dish out.

I took stock of his position and any potential escape routes besides the door, my old instincts coming to the forefront of my mind under pressure. He looked as if he might need medical treatment for shock. He had not moved in the minute or so that it had taken for all of us to get into his room and his normally ruddy face was the colour of Elmer's glue. I decided it was better not to wait for him to regain his barbed toung, so I broke the silence.

"You had better be able to listen to my voice without interrupting, no matter how hard it is for you, because right now the lives of the people you see before you are in danger."

With no delay, I reiterated the story that Echo had just told us, and what that brought to light about Jinx, and possibly even Scales. "If Scales was in that facility with them, then it would explain the DNA similarities between her and Mystique. Project Gamma could have done that to her." _Focus, _Target chided me. "That is beside the point. The point is that Jinx is dangerous to anyone with no mental related abilities; she is not just a harmless little girl who has a cute power to shut people up. She has killed huge numbers of people, and she wants control of the new X-men, so who knows what she will do to get it. She will mark this group of people because we are going to resist her. Ellen did not want the name that Jinx gave her, so we are going to call her Ceramic. I am going to protect them, so we want to know what you will do. We know where the rest of them stand, so we want to know where you are in this. You are known for being a rebel."

He finally came unfrozen from his shock and he looked over the people who were there. He looked me in the face and began laughing. "You're not serious. That is just ridiculous."

Echo's face twisted into an ugly grimace and she strode past the rest of us without a word. She grabbed Wolverine by the throat and held him against the wall with her right hand. His knees were bent because she was so short but he still looked as if a bombshell had come down in front of him. With her left she pulled up the sleeve of her right sleeve. Underneath the intricate tattoos of the elements and some kind of energy, there were five number branded into her flesh.

"50633. That number was who I was for years, it was my whole identity. Mercury, I'm sorry, _Jinx_ was 50652. She could not get rid of it even if she wanted to. They had someone there with an acidic finger tip, and no one could do anything to something he had touched. Make her show it to you, it will be there." Echo threw him to the ground and shook her sleeve back over the mark before going to stand beside Shadow on the wall.

Wolverine slowly stood up, massaging his bruised throat where she had seized it. I could see by the expression on his face that he now got that we were serious. He stood gaping at us for the longest time, his hand at his now healed throat. He took his hand from his throat, and with an obvious effort, he held it out to me. I gazed at it warily, wondering if I took it he would impale me, he had done it twice now.

"I'll see what I can do for you all. You need more evidence, but I think we can convince the rest of them slowly that you are right. You all know I hate both Jason and waiting with a vengeance, but I can settle for working with you if it means that I can keep making fun of both of them into the future."


	9. Chapter 9

I ran my fingers furiously through my hair, the slick strands sliding over my hands. Over the past four months we had gained photographs of Jinx doing some very illegal things, but Wolverine kept insisting we needed more. I was starting to wonder if he was just stalling for time. Jinx had started to suspect, so we were all confined to one room, fortunately it was mine with the double doors. Most of my team's possessions had been confiscated; mine weren't because they had all been inspected more than once. Ceramic had split the already tiny mattresses in the first week we were in there, now we were thankful to have those at all. We alternated showers, and I had given up mine for two weeks so that Target could clean his wound, so I was feeling deja vu to when I was in Alaska.

As we had stayed together, we had learned that habits from the past could surface easily. I had come back early from observation one day and been stabbed through the stomach by a six inch knife wielded by a slit eyed Shadow. She yanked it out and apologized for twenty minutes while I maintained that I was glad it was me and not some one who did not regenerate. She had almost replicated the incident several times, and once thrown it through my hand, scraping my claws painfully. Ceramic had almost smothered me in the wall after she developed a similar fighting intuition. My constant response was that I was glad it was me and not some poor soul who would actually be harmed.

We had been forced to bond when we had been confined to one room and now we trusted each other totally. My history as a fighter in Alaska, Shadow's experience as an assassin among the mob, Target's abuse from his brother, and even Echo's story and power of adaptation were all common knowledge within the team. Everyone knew that Shadow and I were together, Target and Ceramic shared each others thoughts, and Reptile was in love with Stitches. Two other suppressed mutants, Stitches and Reptile, had joined us one month into our investigation, putting strain on bed space, clothing and hot water. I had moved to the floor and Shadow slept standing in a corner. No one could figure out how to do that. Most clothing was limited and you cut your hair yourself or it was not cut at all. Makeup and fancy hair dos had long since become obsolete. I had briefed them in the way I had lived on the road for my years, and we had adopted that life style effortlessly. When we were allowed to emerge under guard for examination, people mocked us, saying we were becoming fitter and our senses were sharper because we were becoming animals. I always hissed mockingly and said if I was the animal why was I not slicing them to bits. That always made them scatter.

Stitches hair and eyes had turned florescent purple when she had discovered she could heal and destroy flesh. She was a short, kind-hearted girl with skin the colour of creamy coffee who had been dubbed Shredder by Jinx. The shy girl had worked up the courage to go to Storm, and had been punished. She had been launched through both doors, in a circumstance strangely similar to Wolverine's treatment of me, by an enraged Jinx after she had told Storm that she wanted to be called Stitches, and had been unconscious for three days afterwards with a welt under her blood soaked hair. She had healed many wounds for us that would have otherwise festered and killed people other than us with the bacteria. She was waiting for the infection in Target's wound to die before she healed it.

Reptile was much more recent, with his dramatic smashing through the ceiling onto Echo nearly getting him killed by the gang war veteran. He looked similar to Scales, except he wore clothing. His bright yellow eyes seemed to stare right into your soul and his green skin was the texture of a snake's. Scales had tried to throttle him when he had managed to sneak up on her in the hall way and take a video of her imitating him to make his name Cobra. That video had earned him a bed and a share of hot water. He had a shock of course black hair that was always unruly that seemed to reflect how his mind worked. He had fallen for the motherly Stitches when she had listened kindly to him rant about Scales for two hours while she mended his broken arm and nose.

Privacy had long since become a bygone thing, and probably the thing I missed most about Alaska. I regularly practiced my levitation and claws at the same time, Target would yell through people's heads when he was mad so as to not destroy our ears, and Shadow had taken to throwing a knife at a square foot of wall that was not doing so well structurally despite Ceramic's best efforts to fix it. Discussions would escalate from two people to all seven of us in a matter of minutes, then die in the same amount of time. The one time you could think without being overheard was when you went to spy on Jinx or one of her cohorts, which meant you could not think about anything but your "day job". One of our many inside jokes.

It was the first day of the fifth month of isolation and I crashed through the window, rolling to my feet while I was striping off the ragged fingerless gloves that I had taken to wearing. I threw them on my section of floor and began a tirade about one of the newest recruits to Jinx's Gestapo. They had become my private tirade subject, as we had picked as the observation had gotten harder.

"So, if we want to get photographs, _let alone videos_ we now have to get past the set up laser freak, the alternating sonic shield, and now on top of that there is a magnetic guy who lounges near the outside. I barely made it past that monstrosity without spitting my skin open and tearing out my bones!" I looked at those present, Stitches, Ceramic and Target were all sitting around the tiny room, gazing at me as I raged on. The unmistakable sound of my claws sliding out accompanied my next statement. The comment that I had made so many times everyone could recite it. "_Metal._ I am practically made of it. I cannot go on Thursday nights now, according to the new schedule."

_What?! _Target's mental scream blasted through any meager protection we had around our minds, but we barely winced. _What new schedule? I went this morning and there was no magnetic guy!_

"Target!" One of Ceramic's rare snaps made the waves of energy come to an abrupt end. "They know when Jason comes, so they have adjusted accordingly. Wolv-sorry Jason, did you get anything?"

I pulled out the camera slowly, staring at Ceramic. Her slip was not unusual, but they had been occurring more and more frequently. "What naming conference did I miss? I do not remember getting any name. I have not even applied for Wolverine or Wolf."

She looked me in the face steadily, no fear showed, we had gotten good at that in five months. "You look and sound more like him than you know. Especially when you are mad."

I took a deep steadying breath to calm my already boiling temper. "You keep telling me that. Is my hair turning brown? Last time I checked it was still black. Do I need to spend less than almost no time with Wolverine?"

I pushed at a table edge with my palms, wishing we could get the one video we needed. The edge of the table had become compressed because I had made a habit of taking my anger out on it. With the swoosh of draining water Shadow appeared beside me. She held out a videotape, smiled slightly and jerked onto her face. Stitches rushed forward, her hands gliding over Shadow's back where a huge series of deep gashes melded beneath her expert fingers. I looked at the blood-slicked tape and put it in the one screen we had. The grainy image came up and I watched the events.

Shadow was sitting in the dark corner of a secluded back hall filming the scene; Jinx was talking to a six year old who was making a flower bloom and die in his hand. Jinx bent down to his level and put her hand on his. Then she concentrated, her face twisting, and the boy fell, his face stiffening then relaxing. Jinx picked up the body of the child and threw it out the window, dusting off her hands. The blood had obscured the rest, but I was sure I knew what it held.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Shadow was standing again, her torn shirt hanging limply off of her thin form. "I got us the shot we need." She opened her other hand and revealed the flower the boy had been playing with. It was made of glass. "I know where he is, I moved him so we could show-show them."

I heard a slam and the whole room shook. We all snapped into battle mode, my fingerless gloves slid on as the claws sliced out. Shadow was next to the door, ready to open it with her knife in her other hand. Ceramic had the door frame ready to move and Target stood on the other side. Stitches was strictly hand to hand, so she waited for me to set her up. The door came open of it's own accord and Echo was revealed with a shield set up against a barrage of attacks. Reptile threw himself into the room, dragging Wolverine behind him. As soon as they were in Echo made her shield explode, releasing an enormous amount of pressure and mixed thermal engery into the corridor before she dived in, slamming to door with a whirlwind.

I could hear the pressure causing a chain reaction down the corridor as the three newcomers stood up. Wolverine was holding the body of a small girl, her face badly burned by a series of precise lasers, reminding me crazily of the images of what Cyclops used to do. I could hear the door beginning to buckle and looked at them, my team, the people I would give my life for. We all knew what would come next. Wolverine was taking in our stringy, unwashed forms with wide eyes as we turned to the door, and it fell in before us.


	10. Chapter 10

The door fell in beside Shadow's fading silhouette, bringing with it a cloud of dense smoke and two unconscious forms. The explosion had done its job perhaps too well. I crept forward to the edge of the smoke and turned the unconscious boys over cautiously.

"It's those two new kids who seemed like jock assholes, Stone and Laser. Watch Laser's left hand, that is the one he shoots out of and I think that you can make him shoot while he is unconscious, hence the face of the girl."

Bile rose in my throat as I realized how Jinx had seized control of our isolated mutant world. I laid both of the boys out on the floor so they would look as if they had not been touched. We all stepped over them, Echo making the smoke billow out of the way, and revealing just how many people were coughing and unconscious on the floor. Most of the recent and younger recruits to Jinx's faux X-men, untrained recent finds that had little or no control of their powers. Her attack plan was simple, put the pawns first and save the queen for later. So Magneto like it made me sick.

Half of the children were no older than eight, and some of them were dead. I looked around at the carnage then at the corridor ahead and I snarled at the lying slime that had dared to show her face around us after this. Scales looked equal parts horrified and terrified at the spectacle before her. She had realized how strong we had made ourselves through the survival mode that she had mocked us about, and she had not known what Jinx truly was and what she could do to others.

She turned and fled, her skin changing in her panic, making it easy to follow her down the corridors as her speed changed with every change. Shadow retreated, her eyes blazing, into a corner and vanished. We heard Scales's cries for mercy as we came upon the two. Shadow had the struggling metamorph pinned to the wall by her throat, her glittering knife at the multi-coloured throat, my claws retracted soundlessly as there was no need of them. These were the situations when I was glad that she was an assasin.

We surrounded her helpless form and the quietly anguished voice of Stitches was a palpable force in the still air, making Scales flinch. "Why? Tell me _why_, Scales."

Scales swallowed and gasped something about necessary sacrifice, Shadow was not buying it and the trickle of bright red blood over her textured skin was evidence. Scales eyes widened and she gasped as if she were a fish out of water before desperately whispering her response.

"She- has –a-death---wish." Shadow's knife loosened its hold so she could speak normally without the lies, "I do not know what has come over her, but she-"

A sound like a cloth being dragged over dead leaves made Shadow jerk her knife back. The wall behind Scales had begun to squirm and writhe as if it were alive and, like many green snakes; it had begun to wrap Scales in a cocoon made of the walls.

Ceramic's hands twisted in a final jerk as all but Scales's head was firmly locked in place, ensuring even with her contortionist skills, she would not escape. Her green eyes widened and her terrified, reptilian shrieks followed us down the hall as we crept toward the junction of the major paths in the school. I could hear nervous chatter and I halted everyone as I listened, Snickers and his mistress were ahead, along with several of their more powerful cronies, and Storm. I looked at Target and he swore loudly so only we could hear, conveying the bad news. Faces soured and everyone readied themselves for battle, my claws itching to avenge the innocent souls that Jinx had destroyed in her death march.

I raised my right hand and Target came slinking up past me, gesturing for us to duck. He came around the corner; his arm out at shoulder level in a gesture that mocked whoever else was on the other side. I knew what was coming and covered my sensitive ears, waiting for the blast. The pacifist was taunting them, and then the sound of Iceman swinging into action and their world was blown to bits. The pure kinetic energy from Target's full power blast went through the walls on either side, sending several heavy forms and more than a few light ones with it. I stood up as I came around the corner without fear now, seeing Jinx just getting to her feet with Snicker's limp form just before her with a huge piece of glass vase stuck in his back.

Alone now, Jinx faced us. Her chest heaved as Stitches walked forward, her hand outstretched. Jinx backed up so fast that she tripped over the unconscious body of Storm and began scrambling back from the pale hand that could mean her destruction. A wall of fire erupted between Jinx and her only escape route, now she could choose the hand or the fire. One pain or the other. I came forward, my right claws toward the ceiling, offering her another alternative.

She threw herself at me, her cloud of cold silencing energy gathering around her like a swarm of knats in the summer. I smiled and turned over my left hand, showing her the piece of glass floating there, the mental energy keeping it aloft my protection. She looked wild, out of control, and desperate. She turned back to me and ran at my still extended left hand, and the horizontal claws that went with it. She plunged herself onto them, her form jerking as they cleanly sliced her stomach in two.

The cold died with her out of control emotions. The anger, the frustration, the spite all vanished as her grey eyes dimmed. She smiled slightly and her last words were seen and heard by everyone on her last ragged breath.

"Thank" she halted, taking a gasp of a breath, "you…"

Her last word faded with her life as the light went out of her eyes and she fell backwards off my claws, almost hitting the floor in slow motion, her face peaceful and untroubled. Echo came forward and rested her hand on Jinx's forehead, closing her glassy and ever staring eyes. Target had walked around the rest of us and had closed the horrified eyes of his brother. He and his brother had never been close and Ceramic as rubbed his back, she fell. The world seemed to slow again, all sound eliminated as everyone's face turned to the dying form of the kind-hearted girl who had been misnamed by the now prone form of the ultimate silencer.

Target's soundless scream as he caught her form was lost on my ears. Stitches descended, her hands flying over Ceramic and she gasped. I could feel the cold around her and realized Jinx had taken one more life. The sound and speed of the world came back all at once; I could hear Target's horrified yells and I could also hear the last breaths of one of my dearest friends.

She looked up at me and raised a violently shaking hand that I took, ignoring the cold spreading in it. "You were a great leader, Jason. We chose, well." Her voice was fading, and the air was creeping into it. She took a long, ragged breath and continued speaking and everyone was held spell bound as she did. "You, need to hold them together. They are the hope of the X-men. " She looked at Target, and her slurred words were for him alone. "Go on, I will always be there. I will never truly leave you, I will always be there for-"

The cold stopped, her breath stopped and her eyes closed, letting her head fall back onto Target's arm. He had stopped shouting, but tears fell in a waterfall onto the face of his best friend, and his only love. He stood up, and set her body on the sideboard where she would not be harmed. My head snapped in unison with Wolverine's as a stirring was heard in the debris from the battle. A staggering Storm came limping toward us, her eyes blazing as she took in the group huddled around Ceramic's body.

Her face changed as she took in what she had stood up in. The masses of unconscious and dead students were pilled in groups; they stretched through the shattered walls and down the corridor, dead, mangled or now screaming in pain as they woke up under pieces of wall with crushed bones. She took in how my team stood behind me, their eyes sharp and the power surrounding us like a cloud.

She held up her hand and winced before I could even start. "Logan, what happened here? Why do they look like X-men and Jinx lies dead before me?"

Wolverine looked at the rest of us and the story came out in several voices, each telling the story in their own way. When it was told, Wolverine retrieved the body of the girl and showed Storm the destroyed face. She was stiff throughout the entire story, her face twisting and the weather growing darker and darker as it went on. When we had finished we all stayed on high alert, ready to counter any attack she could muster in her exhausted and injured state, but all our preparations were for naught. At the end, her shoulders drooped and she fell, her shoulder's dropping as her exhaustion over took her. The sun came out and the windows and holes in the wall held the sun beams trapped in the swirling clouds of pulverized debris.

We looked at each other, shrugged and began the terrible process of sorting out what had been done for the school. We began it as we had begun our investigation, everyone together through the thick and thin.


	11. Leonardo

Full Disclosure: Echo dies before this ever happens, and a group of radicals the same age as Jason and his team have risen. They call themselves Lord Chamberlain's Players and their leader is Tybalt with his girlfriend Scales.

This is a new team. I know this seems as if I am dragging this out, but this world never seems to want to die in my mind. I apologize.

Months passed. Echo became more and more restless as the clean up neared its end. I feared the worst, and it was confirmed. The very day the clean up was finished and the very last piece of rubble was cleared away, a note appeared on the piece of floor Echo had occupied.

_Jason and the rest of the team,_

I am terribly sorry, but **something** calls me to leave. I know I will die, but one part of me will live on in another. I will tell you she is a **stubborn** girl and that she has more control over her destiny than you will ever know. **A great storm brews** to the west, beware those who would seek to exploit you. A team of mutants has arisen there; they are **a team** of radical man haters, so watch out. I have seen they will strike a convention that the one I leave to you will speak at; she is the keynote **speaker**.

_She will speak on __**Mutant Evolution**__._

Four Years Later

Point 1: Jason is now the leader of the X-men at twenty, with Shadow and Wolverine as his key advisors.

Point 2: A group calling themselves Puritans has assembled in California; their mission is to eliminate the last of the "pure bread humans".

Point 3: Jason and his team have chosen a group to train specially, their leader of sorts, Leonardo, has illusion power higher than Jason Stryker's, and his powers just keep growing. All of them are sixteen

Point 4: In Salt Lake City, there is a convention assembling. The keynote speaker is a sixteen-year-old mutant of immense power, and is considered the worldwide authority on what she has chosen to speak on. A conspiracy is brewing around her about a mutant "medical" facility.

Point 5: Ms. Mirror is the worldwide expert on ongoing Mutant Evolution.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

I sat back in the seat I occupied unwillingly in Utah, when I should be in New York, or even in Colorado.

Next to me, I could feel the distinctive presence of the X-men; all of them on edge for no reason at all. I could hear the mental projections of one of the group of trainees that I was counted as the forced leader of, the words to 1, 2 Step. Why waste my money on an ipod when Missy had telepathy and controlled it through music?

I looked at my best friend, Jazz, who sat next to me. His golden rod hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the base of his neck, revealing his piercing, tawny eyes in his lightly tanned, high cheek boned face. I handed him my program with the next speaker circled, Miako Mirror, who was going to speak on a subject close to my heart. Jazz laughed when he saw what she was speaking about, but sobered when he noticed the picture. I shook my head at his fascination with Asian peoples faces.

She was very upright in her picture, standing amidst a flowering tree garden, in a kimono-like coat falling to her knees over a pair of matching silky pants and v-neck shirt. The shirt was patterned with a storm, the waves crashing at her waist and the foam rising to her chest, but the dark blue seemed to reflect the kind of girl she was. The almond shaped eyes were filled with a stormy sea to match her shirt, with waves twice as ferocious and winds battering the edges of the colour, howling for release. Her silky black hair fell around her distinctively Asian face in graceful curtains that flowed down her back to her waist. I detected a new stiffness in all the X-men and scratched the side of my face while Jazz whistled in appreciation of the girl walking on stage. He growled playfully, the sound making his whole throat ripple. I gave him a look that warned him to stay quiet or get out.

I glared from him to Missy warningly, knowing we were among the figurative wolves now, even if Jazz was half one. The screen rolling down behind Ms. Mirror was for a projector, with the thin fabric easily cut through by anything. Her project flashed onto the screen and I readied myself for the worst on mutant evolution. As her sleek voice washed over me, I could tell why people complained about her being an almost ridiculously captivating speaker. As the DNA diagrams flashed onto the screens, comparing older strands with newer strands, I could see disruptions in the fabric of the screen. I met the lion's eyes of my friend, and his chin jutted out towards the seats next to me.

"They left and I don't know where they are now, Leonardo, what do you want us to do?"

I took a survey of the area and stock of who I had, Jazz, Missy, Kino, Rico and Pass, Forest and me. "We stay put until it gets nasty. Watch Miako, we might be able to do something with her, she is supposed to be a very powerful mutant."

Miako had just got to the main point of her lecture and the entire audience was enthralled with her real world examples and her experience with everything that she was saying.

"My main point is that _mutant kind are still evolving, _ladies and gentlemen. Almost everyone in this room has a dormant mutant gene somewhere in their system."

A single person started clapping, his molecules flying from every direction to form into the sinisterly smiling form of Tybalt. He came forward to her back and smiled wider, about as sincere as his oily hair.

"Go one, girly. I want to hear the conclusion of the lecture. I paid good money to get that seat."

"You want to hear the conclusion, Tybalt? How about not from someone who makes you turn to smoke?"

Tybalt was wrenched back by a green hand, Scales the traitor had decided to show her face again. He brushed of his chest, stopping the flow of molecules seemingly caused by the stiff form of the lecturer. Scales slunk out of the shadow of the screen, looking miraculously similar to the videos I had seen of Mystique and Magneto as she clung to him like a scaly leech.


	12. Chapter 12

My patience had long since come to an end. Sitting beside the blind girl who claimed that we would meet a friend here had become tiresome. I looked at the Ace of Hearts in my hand and back at the stringy white hair that was all I could see of my pale-faced guide, and ground my teeth together as I pictured horrendous deaths for the person who had banned me from my card table.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

I collapsed, exhausted, just outside the smoking wreck of the once elegant Salt Lake City Expo center. My shaking hands attempted to keep my wilting spikes from dying, but it was no use. After my telekinetic exhaustion I knew I would sleep for days if allowed, but of course we still had more to do. All of the x-men trainees were sweaty, tired and furious. We had been pulling people out of the way of the fight, then the wreckage for two hours, a fight that had no even been necessary. Kino's fist clenched and unclenched as he vanished regularly, teleporting rubble out of the way with Missy's instructions in his head. Rico was trying to calm the smoking Forest as she threatened to blow, which would be another two hour clean up. Pass was twitching in and out of his personal hyperspace as he held down the furious Jazz.

The seven of us were ready to kill the X-men as they came out of the rubble, unfazed _and_ clean with Miako. We met them half way, the clean verses the survivors. I was wondering how much of a drain on me it would be rip Jason's head off telekinetically as I walked to face him.

"How can you accuse _us_ of starting fights? You tried to send him to kingdom come with no provocation! Why is _she_ so important?"

I was getting bad vibrations from Miako, but I was not about to tell Mr. I-have-to-save-her-for-a-reason-I-will-not-tell-you. I jerked my head and the disgruntled X-men trainees headed to a nearby bar to cool off with a few hours of boring observation.

We spread out in the bar; I had noticed two suspicious power emissions from one of the corner tables removed from the gambling and stripers. Missy had hauled the sizzling Forest to the door by the cool air and Pass had stuck by my side. The chill around him was at force field level from his many trips into his Speed. I sat beside Pass at a table in a back corner where a blind albino teenager and a twitching, fedora-ed man sat almost behind a heavy curtain. The power here had two textures (or flavors, as I termed them) one that was chaotic and explosive and another that was as flowing and adaptable as water.

The albino inclined her head and the man flipped an Ace of Hearts in the air. I had realized she was blind when she did not meet my eyes and she never blinked. Pass seemed more frightened by her than I was and his hands kept twitching under the table as he took stock of the exits.

"We've been waiting for you, Gambit wants to go back to the card tables." Her tone became mocking as she caught the spinning and sparkling Ace. "Oh, the horror of not gambling for ten minutes."

He bared his teeth at her and snatched the card back out of her hand. He pushed the hat off his face and I saw he was about forty, with gray streaks in his thick brown hair. The name clicked somewhere in my mind and I remembered a file I had stolen from a folder marked CLASSIFIED in army print.

"Are you Remy LaBeau?"

He chuckled and leaned forward, a gesture that suggested some card players had a good hand, or were bluffing. I decided to play with him and let him ask a question, tipping my chair onto two legs. The albino slid into the game and broke it up in the same breath.

"Now boys, this is no way to start. Leonardo, Gambit is Remy LaBeau. My name is Ghost, and we are here to warn you about a great danger. The girl-"

"Miako." I interrupted her, "I got that. She has the texture of something slimy. Jason, the X-men leader, thinks she is important. I can stay here a few days, the X-men do not care what we do as long as we do not kill anyone."

"She is more dangerous than they know. She has been a Puritain, and is trying to save lives with the recessive gene shit. All evidence shows that a massive radioactive explosion would activate that gene. Guess what they are planning?"

The final, sardonic question made me sigh. I hated working with these kinds of people, but I guess they exist in the world.

Ghost smiled a harsh, cold smile that revealed teeth as white as her hair and the water energy froze to a block of ice. "Then we understand each other perfectly."


End file.
